Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the fact that Thai Immigration has apparently added 330 new Officers to their ranks. Now if you recall, this is going back a little while now so maybe only long time viewers will really maybe understand this, but going back to about 2018-19 - this is pre-Covid - I remember doing videos about a massive expansion of Immigration personnel at that time. So to add another 330 officers now, that is substantial and as I have discussed in other videos, Thai Immigration is quite serious these days about their function in law enforcement or as a law enforcement entity rather than kind of the older paradigm pertaining to Immigration which was sort of an administrative paradigm. That has kind of shifted especially roughly in the last seven or eight years here in Thailand.

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from Khao Sod English, that's khaosodenglish.com, the article is titled: Thai Officer shares lovely moment with American Tourist's 18-hour flight for 'Moo Deng'. It's kind of an interesting article. I urge those who are watching this video go check out that article in detail. We're going to quote a quick excerpt here pertaining to this particular topic but some funny stuff regarding 'Moo Deng', and some stuff like that. That said, quoting directly: "Police Lance Corporal Pichaya graduated from Khon Kaen University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, majoring in Business English. She just started her Civil Service career in June 2024 as part of the Immigration Bureaus personnel increase project, following the then-Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin's policy, which added 330 new officers." 

So, again going back into 2018-19 we saw a major influx of personnel into Thai Immigration. Now it appears they are adding another 330. So again, what does this tell us? Well as expats it tells us that look Immigration is going to have more personnel for things like inspections and adjudications. The other thing to bear in mind is again as previously stated, and I will reiterate, yeah Immigration's paradigm has fundamentally changed, very much so in the last decade. Whereas in the past it was viewed much more as an administrative function, these days it definitely views itself and its overarching paradigm is that of a law enforcement apparatus more and more. I think as we see more and more foreigners coming to Thailand looking to live here, they are going to need more adjudicators, more inspectors, they're going to need more personnel for border security etc. I don't think this trend is set to change anytime soon here in the Kingdom Thailand.